I hope when Jonathan Littman said he didn't know where some of the places they're going this season aren't places in the US and having them travel again throughout the US. I'm hoping he means more exotic places throughout the world

I have a hypothesis that the sighting in Burkina Faso may have been the Brazilian Amazing Race rather than AR12. If Amazing Race Asia 2 can go to Hungary, then why can't Amazing Race Brazil go to Africa? You can get to Ougadougou from Sao Paulo with one connection in Paris.

If it was AR12, isn't it odd that weeks later there hasn't been even a whisper anywhere around the globe. Now this is the way I would have designed it, using very low income, off-the-beaten-track countries to avoid detection by all the spoilers of the world. Maybe that's just what van Munster/Doganieri did. More probably, AR12 has not left yet.

Race 12 and More… Starts Here! Tuesday, July 10, 2007 So… Amazing Race 12 won’t be airing until January 2008 or so, but work is already underway. I like it that our schedule this time around isn’t quite so hectic. It means I’ll have a chance to dig in and try some new ideas, sounds, techniques… and with any luck the music will be all the better for my extra tinkering-time.

It isn’t always that way—extra time can sometimes be a bad thing, believe it or not! I’m a firm believer that struggle is underrated, that the fear of an impending deadline can streamline and refine the creative process. I think that, as composers, we have to learn to trust our first instincts and make ‘em work. Sometimes those instincts are wrong… but if we’re constantly second-guessing them, I think we get into the bad habit of believing our ‘gut feeling’ is somehow disposable, that it’s something to be ignored. In a business where it’s our opinion (creative, musical, narrative, aesthetic) that we’re selling, that can be a crucial mistake.

Right now, though, I’m enjoying the extra time to create. I have a bunch of new sound libraries and audio plug-ins and mix techniques I want to try, and it’s nice to have the luxury of making some mistakes for a week or two. You won’t hear those mistakes—they’ll be relegated unceremoniously to the Trash—but I’ll hear them. And, with any luck, I’ll be able to use them to make the next incarnation of Amazing Race music even better: harder-hitting, sonically richer, more adventurous. I can’t wait!

Image: Where will the twelfth Amazing Race take you? Tune in and find out!—in a few months.

The music guy e-mailed me back, he said the usual as somebody told me he would - "i can't say, i signed a contract, blah blah" but it was really nice of him to take the time to send me one and he told me to enjoy the show!